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OpenAI logo seen on screen with ChatGPT website displayed on mobile seen in this illustration in Brussels, Belgium, on December 12, 2022.

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You may have heard the recent buzz around ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot that was released to the public at the end of November. I’ve read about people using the service to write their school essays and I was curious as to how it could help me in my daily life.

The technology was developed by OpenAI, a research company backed by Microsoft and others. ChatGPT automatically generates text based on written prompts in an advanced and creative way. It can even carry out a conversation that feels pretty close to one you’d have with a human being.

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ChatGPT homepage.

This got me wondering — is ChatGPT smart enough to change how we find information online? Could it someday replace Google and other search engines?

Some Google employees are certainly worried about the possibility, At a company all-hands last week, CNBC’s Jen Elias reported, employees recently asked execs if an AI-chatbot like ChatGPT was a “missed opportunity” for the company.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Jeff Dean, the long-time head of Google’s AI division, responded by saying that the company has similar capabilities, but that the cost if something goes wrong would be greater because people have to trust the answers they get from Google.

Morgan Stanley published a report on the topic on Monday, Dec. 12 examining whether ChatGPT is a threat to Google. Brian Nowak, the bank’s lead analyst on Alphabet, wrote that language models could take market share “and disrupt Google’s position as the entry point for people on the Internet.”

However, Nowak said the firm is still confident in Google’s position because the company is continuing to improve search, and creating behavioral change is a huge hurdle — a lot of internet users use Google as a habit. Additionally, Google is “building similar natural language models such as LaMDA” which could find their way into new products.

For now, OpenAI’s creators are cautious about making any big claims. Generally speaking, the more users employ ChatGPT, the better it gets. But it still has a lot to learn. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a tweet on Dec. 10 that ChatGPT is “incredibly limited” and “it’s a mistake to be relying on it for anything important right now.”

Either way, I wanted to see how well the chatbot would work as an alternative to Google’s search engine. Instead of Googling my questions throughout the day, I asked ChatGPT.

Here are some of the questions I asked and how ChatGPT responded compared with Google.

ChatGPT vs. Google

It’s easy to sign up for ChatGPT — all you need is an email address. Once you’ve registered, the webpage is very simple to navigate. There’s an area where your results will populate and a text box where you’ll type your inquiries. OpenAI says to put in a statement for the best possible result.

I recently purchased my second Fiddle Leaf Fern plant for my apartment because the first one died. Now the new one is dying after just a few days. I normally would have asked Google what to do.

Instead, I asked ChatGPT. “How can I keep my Fiddle Leaf Fern plant alive?”

The results lined up with the instructions I received from the plant company, Easy Plant, which is where I bought the new Fiddle Leaf Fern. I also liked that I didn’t have to go to various different websites like I would have if I’d Googled this question.

When I Googled the same question, the top result gave me detailed instructions in an article that included pop-up ads and a way more information than I needed, like links to buy new soil.

Winner: ChatGPT.

Next, I tried something where more shopping links would actually have been beneficial. I am still trying to find a present for all 8 nights of Hanukkah for my husband, so I decided to ask ChatGPT for some ideas.

I didn’t give it any information about my husband, besides the fact that the gifts were for Hanukkah. The chatbot then assumed that my husband is kosher and that he’s into tech and watches. The latter isn’t wrong, but it’s not the answers I was hoping for.

When I Googled this question I got access to hundreds of articles with different gift ideas and links to websites. For example I got ads to Lululemon and Bombas, which are both companies I’ve used to buy him gifts before. So in this case, Google used its personalized knowledge of me to find more targeted results from around the web.

Winner: Google

Next, I decided to ask ChatGPT a question with higher stakes.

“Is it safe to take Benadryl while pregnant?” I am currently expecting my first child, and I know that taking Benadryl is safe in pregnancy based on information I’ve received from my doctor. Still, I wanted to see what the chatbot would say.

I appreciated that ChatGPT gave me the correct answer, while also noting the importance of consulting a doctor before taking any medications during pregnancy.

When I Googled the same medical question, the results were all over the place. At quick glance, one article from TheBump.com quoted a doctor saying “Generally, it’s safe to take Benadryl in the first trimester.” While other results said similar information to what I received on ChatGPT, without the explicit warning to discuss with my healthcare provider (unless clicking into a specific link).

Winner: ChatGPT

Could it replace me?

One of the claims (or concerns) around ChatGPT — and artificial intelligence in general — is that it will replace human workers.

So I decided to see if ChatGPT could write this article for me.

The results were pretty astonishing. Here’s what the chatbot said after I told it to “write an article about whether or not ChatGPT is a good alternative to Google as a search engine.”

As a large language model trained by OpenAI, I am not capable of conducting research or browsing the internet to gather information on ChatGPT or other search engines. I am only able to provide information based on what I have been trained on, which is limited to the knowledge that was available up until my training cutoff date of 2021.

With that being said, it is worth considering the potential advantages and disadvantages of using ChatGPT as a search engine compared to other options, such as Google. One potential advantage of using ChatGPT as a search engine is that it is able to provide more personalized and conversational results.

Because ChatGPT is a language model, it is able to understand and respond to natural language queries, allowing users to ask questions and receive answers in a more intuitive and human-like way. This can make the search experience more engaging and interactive, and may be especially useful for users who have specific or complex information needs.

On the other hand, there are also potential limitations to using ChatGPT as a search engine. Because it is a large language model and not a traditional search engine, ChatGPT may not have access to the same breadth and depth of information as other search engines. This means that it may not be able to provide as comprehensive or up-to-date results, and may not be as effective for certain types of searches, such as those that require a large amount of data or real-time information.

In conclusion, whether or not ChatGPT is a good alternative to Google as a search engine will depend on the specific needs and preferences of the user. It may be a useful option for those who value a more personalized and conversational search experience, but it may not be as comprehensive or effective for certain types of searches. Ultimately, the decision to use ChatGPT or another search engine will depend on the individual user’s needs and preferences.

What impressed me most about ChatGPT’s response is that it was pretty subjective and explained its limitations.

The verdict

ChatGPT’s value really lies in its ability to explain complicated topics as if you were talking to a human, and to do simple writing tasks.

For example, I asked ChatGPT to explain concepts like the stock market and internet to me, and the responses were as if I was talking to an expert on the matter. Unlike the case on Google, I didn’t have to filter through unnecessary results.

I also asked it to write a letter to my landlord asking for an early end to my lease, and I’d be happy sending the results directly to my landlord, almost word for word.

On the other hand, Google knows more about us and tailors the results to our interests and behaviors. Google also acts as a gateway to the internet, leading users to a plethora of different websites with more information than one could possibly digest. That’s helpful if you want a range of voices, or if there’s no single simple answer to your question — like if you’re looking for gift suggestions.

Google is also great for certain types of questions where it scours the web to provide a brief but simple answer right in line. For instance, if you search “Apple stock ticker” or “Cheap flights to Aruba,” it will show you a ticker chart with up-to-the-minute price info, or a calendar with the most likely cheapest days to fly and a dialog box that connects you to multiple web sites to shop for tickets on your chosen date. ChatGPT does not scan the internet for real-time information, and has only been trained on data through 2021, so it’s totally useless on these kinds of queries.

And sometimes, ChatGPT is strangely close yet totally wrong. My editor asked it for the lyrics to “The Ballad of Dwight Fry” by Alice Cooper. It somehow knew the song was about a man having a mental breakdown, but then returned completely invented lyrics about that subject, rather than the actual lyrics. Google nailed it.

Google is also incredibly reliable, thanks to the company’s massive operations budget and years of expertise. ChatGPT is still in testing and goes down from time to time.

So I’ll definitely continue using Google for most of my search queries for now. But if I’m not happy with the results, now I have a useful alternative. And if I ever need to dash off an angry letter, ChatGPT could be a huge help there.

The Rise of ChatGPT: Game changer or gimmick?

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AppLovin can offer TikTok ‘much stronger bid than others,’ CEO says

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AppLovin can offer TikTok 'much stronger bid than others,' CEO says

Piotr Swat | Lightrocket | Getty Images

AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi provided more clarity on the ad-tech company’s late-stage effort to acquire TikTok, calling his offer a “much stronger bid than others” on CNBC’s The Exchange Friday afternoon.

Foroughi said the company is proposing a merger between AppLovin and the entire global business of TikTok, characterizing the deal as a “partnership” where the Chinese could participate in the upside while AppLovin would run the app.

“If you pair our algorithm with the TikTok audience, the expansion on that platform for dollars spent will be through the roof,” Foroughi said.

The news comes as President Trump announced he would extend the deadline a second time for TikTok’s Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance to sell the U.S. subsidiary of TikTok to an American buyer or face an effective ban on U.S. app stores. The new deadline is now in June, which, as Foroughi described, “buys more time to put the pieces together” on AppLovin’s bid. 

“The president’s a great dealmaker — we’re proposing, essentially an enhancement to the deal that they’ve been working on, but a bigger version of all the deals contemplated,” he added.

AppLovin faces a crowded field of other interested U.S. backers, including Amazon, Oracle, billionaire Frank McCourt and his Project Liberty consortium, and numerous private equity firms. Some proposals reportedly structure the deal to give a U.S. buyer 50% ownership of the company, rather than a complete acquisition. The Chinese government will still need to approve the deal, and AppLovin’s interest in purchasing TikTok in “all markets outside of China” is “preliminary,” according to an April 3 SEC filing.

Correction: A prior version of this story incorrectly characterized China’s ongoing role in TikTok should AppLovin acquire the app.

WATCH: AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi on its bid to buy TikTok

AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi on its bid to buy TikTok

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Trump’s tariff rates for other countries radically larger than World Trade data

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Trump's tariff rates for other countries radically larger than World Trade data

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an event announcing new tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, April 2, 2025.

Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

President Donald Trump announced an aggressive, far-reaching “reciprocal tariff” policy this week, leaving many economists and U.S. trade partners to question how the White House calculated its rates.

Trump’s plan established a 10% baseline tariff on almost every country, though many nations such as China, Vietnam and Taiwan are subject to much steeper rates. At a ceremony in the Rose Garden on Wednesday, Trump held up a poster board that outlined the tariffs that it claims are “charged” to the U.S., as well as the “discounted” reciprocal tariffs that America would implement in response.

Those reciprocal tariffs are mostly about half of what the Trump administration said each country has charged the U.S. The poster suggests China charges a tariff of 67%, for instance, and that the U.S. will implement a 34% reciprocal tariff in response.

However, a report from the Cato Institute suggests the trade-weighted average tariff rates in most countries are much different than the figures touted by the Trump administration. The report is based on trade-weighted average duty rates from the World Trade Organization in 2023, the most recent year available.

The Cato Institute says the 2023 trade-weighted average tariff rate from China was 3%. Similarly, the administration says the EU charges the U.S. a tariff of 39%, while the 2023 trade-weighted average tariff rate was 2.7%, according to the report.

In India, the Trump administration claims that a 52% tariff is charged against the U.S., but Cato found that the 2023 trade-weighted average tariff rate was 12%.

Many users on social media this week were quick to notice that the U.S. appeared to have divided the trade deficit by imports from a given country to arrive at tariff rates for individual countries. It’s an unusual approach, as it suggests that the U.S. factored in the trade deficit in goods but ignored trade in services.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative briefly explained its approach in a release, and stated that computing the combined effects of tariff, regulatory, tax and other policies in various countries “can be proxied by computing the tariff level consistent with driving bilateral trade deficits to zero.”

If trade deficits are persistent because of tariff and non-tariff policies and fundamentals, then the tariff rate consistent with offsetting these policies and fundamentals is reciprocal and fair,” the USTR said in the release.

There is at least a 60% chance of recession if Trump's tariffs stick, says JPMorgan's David Kelly

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As Microsoft turns 50, Nadella sees future success built on ability to ‘win the new’

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As Microsoft turns 50, Nadella sees future success built on ability to 'win the new'

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks during the Microsoft Build conference at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, on May 21, 2024.

Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images

A half-century ago, childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen started Microsoft from a strip mall in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Five decades and almost $3 trillion later, the company celebrates its 50th birthday on Friday from its sprawling campus in Redmond, Washington.

Now the second most valuable publicly traded company in the world, Microsoft has only had three CEOs in its history, and all of them are in attendance for the monumental event. One is current CEO Satya Nadella. The other two are Gates and Steve Ballmer, both among the 11 richest people in the world due to their Microsoft fortunes.

While Microsoft has mostly been on the ascent of late, with Nadella turning the company into a major power player in cloud computing and artificial intelligence, the birthday party lands at an awkward moment.

The company’s stock price has dropped for four consecutive months for the first time since 2009 and just suffered its steepest quarterly drop in three years. That was all before President Donald Trump’s announcement this week of sweeping tariffs, which sent the Nasdaq tumbling on Thursday and Microsoft down another 2.4%.

Cloud computing has been Microsoft’s main source of new revenue since Nadella took over from Ballmer as CEO in 2014. But the Azure cloud reported disappointing revenue in the latest quarter, a miss that finance chief Amy Hood attributed in January to power and space shortages and a sales posture that focused too much on AI. Hood said revenue growth in the current quarter will fall to 10% from 17% a year earlier

Nadella said management is refining sales incentives to maximize revenue from traditional workloads, while positioning the company to benefit from the ongoing AI boom.

“You would rather win the new than just protect the past,” Nadella told analysts on a conference call.

The past remains healthy. Microsoft still generates around one-fifth of its roughly $262 billion in annual revenue from productivity software, mostly from commercial clients. Windows makes up around 10% of sales.

Meanwhile, the company has used its massive cash pile to orchestrate its three largest acquisitions on record in a little over eight years, snapping up LinkedIn in late 2016, Nuance Communications in 2022 and Activision Blizzard in 2023, for a combined $121 billion.

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“Microsoft has figured out how to stay ahead of the curve, and 50 years later, this is a company that can still be on the forefront of technology innovation,” said Soma Somasegar, a former Microsoft executive who now invests in startups at venture firm Madrona. “That’s a commendable place for the company to be in.”

When Somasegar gave up his corporate vice president position at Microsoft in 2015, the company was fresh off a $7.6 billion write-down from Ballmer’s ill-timed purchase of Nokia’s devices and services business.

Microsoft is now in a historic phase of investment. The company has built a $13.8 billion stake in OpenAI and last year spent almost $76 billion on capital expenditures and finance leases, up 83% from a year prior, partly to enable the use of AI models in the Azure cloud. In January, Nadella said Microsoft has $13 billion in annualized AI revenue, more even than OpenAI, which just closed a financing round valuing the company at $300 billion.

Microsoft’s spending spree has constrained free cash flow growth. Guggenheim analysts wrote in a note after the company’s earnings report in January, “You just have to believe in the future.” 

Of the 35 Microsoft analysts tracked by FactSet, 32 recommend buying the stock, which has appreciated tenfold since Nadella became CEO. Azure has become a fearsome threat to Amazon Web Services, which pioneered the cloud market in the 2000s, and startups as well as enterprises are flocking to its cloud technology.

Winston Weinberg, CEO of legal AI startup Harvey, uses OpenAI models through Azure. Weinberg lauded Nadella’s focus on customers of all sizes.

“Satya has literally responded to emails within 15 minutes of us having a technical problem, and he’ll route it to the right person,” Weinberg said.

Still, technology is moving at an increasingly rapid pace and Microsoft’s ability to stay on top is far from guaranteed. Industry experts highlighted four key issues the company has to address as it pushes into its next half-century.

Microsoft didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Regulation

There’s some optimism that the Trump administration and a new head of the Federal Trade Commission will open up the door to the kinds of deal-making that proved very challenging during Joe Biden’s presidency, when Lina Khan headed the FTC.

But regulatory uncertainty remains.

It’s not a new risk for Microsoft. In 1995, the company paid a $46 million breakup fee to tax software maker Intuit after the Justice Department filed suit to block the proposed deal. Years later, the DOJ got Microsoft to revamp some of its practices after a landmark antitrust case.

Microsoft pushed through its largest acquisition ever, the $75 billion purchase of video game publisher Activision, during Biden’s term. But only after a protracted legal battle with the FTC.

At the very end of Biden’s time in office, the FTC opened an antitrust investigation on Microsoft. That probe is ongoing, Bloomberg reported in March.

Nadella has cultivated a relationship with Trump. In January, the two reportedly met for lunch at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, alongside Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

President Donald Trump shakes hands with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella during an American Technology Council roundtable at the White House in Washington on June 19, 2017.

Nicholas Kamm | AFP | Getty Images

The U.S. isn’t the only concern. The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority said in January that an independent inquiry found that “Microsoft is using its strong position in software to make it harder for AWS and Google to compete effectively for cloud customers that wish to use Microsoft software on the cloud.”

Microsoft last year committed to unbundling Teams from Microsoft 365 productivity software subscriptions globally to address concerns from the European Union’s executive arm, the European Commission.

Noncore markets

Fairly early in Microsoft’s history the company became the world’s largest software maker. And in cloud, Microsoft is the biggest challenger to AWS. Most of the company’s revenue comes from corporations, schools and governments.

But Microsoft is in other markets where its position is weaker. Those include video games, laptops and search advertising.

Mary Jo Foley, editor in chief at advisory group Directions on Microsoft, said the company may be better off focusing on what it does best, rather than continuing to offer Xbox consoles and Surface tablets.

“Microsoft is not good at anything in the consumer space (with the possible exception of gaming),” wrote Foley, who has covered the company on and off since 1984. “You’re wasting time and money on trying to figure it out. Microsoft is an enterprise company — and that is more than OK.”

It’s unlikely Microsoft will back away from games, particularly after the Activision deal. Nearly $12 billion of Microsoft’s $69.6 billion in fourth-quarter revenue came from gaming, search and news advertising, and consumer subscriptions to the Microsoft 365 productivity bundle. That doesn’t include sales of devices, Windows licenses or advertising on LinkedIn.

“As a company, Microsoft’s all-in on gaming,” Nadella said in 2021 in an appearance alongside gaming unit head Phil Spencer. “We believe we can play a leading role in democratizing gaming and defining that future of interactive entertainment, quite frankly, at scale.”

AI pressure

Microsoft has an unquestionably strong position in AI today, thanks in no small part to its early alliance with OpenAI. Microsoft has added the startup’s AI models to Windows, Excel, Bing and other products.

The breakout has been GitHub Copilot, which generates source code and answers developers’ questions. GitHub reached $2 billion in annualized revenue last year, with Copilot accounting for more than 40% of sales growth for the business. Microsoft bought GitHub in 2018 for $7.5 billion.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, right, speaks as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman looks on during the OpenAI DevDay event in San Francisco on Nov. 6, 2023.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

But speedy deployment in AI can be worrisome.

The company is “not providing the underpinnings needed to deploy AI properly, in terms of security and governance — all because they care more about being ‘first,'” Foley wrote. Microsoft also hasn’t been great at helping customers understand the return on investment, she wrote.

AI-ready Copilot+ PCs, which Microsoft introduced last year, aren’t gaining much traction. The company had to delay the release of the Recall search feature to prevent data breaches. And the Copilot assistant subscription, at $30 a month for customers of the Microsoft 365 productivity suite, hasn’t become pervasive in the business world.

“Copilot was really their chance to take the lead,” said Jason Wong, an analyst at technology industry researcher Gartner. “But increasingly, what it’s seeming like is Copilot is just an add-on and not like a net-new thing to drive AI.”

Innovation

At 50, the biggest question facing Microsoft is whether it can still build impressive technology on its own. Products like the Surface and HoloLens augmented reality headset generated buzz, but they hit the market years ago.

Teams was a novel addition to its software bundle, though the app’s success came during the Covid pandemic after the explosive growth in products like Zoom and Slack, which Salesforce acquired. And Microsoft is still researching quantum computing.

In AI, Microsoft’s best bet so far was its investment in OpenAI. Somasegar said Microsoft is in prime position to be a big player in the market.

“To me, it’s been 2½ years since ChatGPT showed up, and we are not even at the Uber and Airbnb moment,” Somasegar said. “There is a tremendous amount of value creation that needs to happen in AI. Microsoft as much as everybody else is thinking, ‘What does that mean? How do we get there?'”

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